After you've gone

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

After You've Gone is a pop ballad that Turner Layton wrote based on a text by Henry Creamer and published in 1918. The song was a number one hit in 1919 and became the jazz standard in the late 1920s . It is also the theme song ( interpreted by Jamie Cullum ) on the BBC television series of the same name .

Characteristics of the song

After You've Gone is the love lament of a woman abandoned by her ex-lover; it gives him to understand that he will regret this step in the future. The song, which is mainly written in major , is in the ABAC song form , with each of the parts (with the exception of the 8-bar C section) comprising four bars . With their haunted repetition of the words After You've Gone and There'll Come a Time, the A parts represent the present and the future respectively. The last four bars of the C section take up this motif again.

First recordings

Al Jolson was the first to sing After You've Gone ; the world premiere took place in New York's Wintergarden Theater . The song was recorded soon after and hit the US charts in 1918 and 1919:

The way to the jazz standard

In 1927 the song was recorded again, on the one hand by Bessie Smith , accompanied by pianist Fletcher Henderson (# 7), on the other hand by Sophie Tucker and Miff Moles Molers (# 10). In the next few years Louis Armstrong (1929) Paul Whiteman (with singer Bing Crosby (1930, # 14), Jack Teagarden and Lionel Hampton (1937, # 6) covered the song.

The first instrumental versions were made as early as 1927 (for example by Johnny Dodds ); in the same year an up- tempo version by Red Nichols and Tommy Dorsey was recorded for the first time . In 1935 Benny Goodman recorded a first commercially successful instrumental version with his trio (# 20); Stuff Smith followed in 1936 . In 1937 Django Reinhardt and Stéphane Grappelli also played instrumental with their Quintette du Hot Club de France After You've Gone . In the same year Roy Eldridge chose the title for the first time as the "starting point for a virtuoso and humorous swing fireworks display" (with singer Gladys Palmer ); In 1941 another brilliant cover version of Eldridge followed with the orchestra of Gene Krupa . 1944 put Blue Note Jazzmen to James P. Johnson also before a recording that is considered a classic. In the second half of the 1940s, mainly saxophonists interpreted the song, for example Charlie Parker with Lester Young (at a Jazz at the Philharmonic concert in 1946, heard on Bird and Pres - The '46 Concerts Jazz at the Philharmonic ), but also Don Byas and Sonny Stitt .

Around 1952, Joyce Bryant recorded the song for Okeh Records .

Till Brönner recorded the piece again in 2010 for his collection At the end of the day .

Function as bebop head

Art Pepper's signature melody Straight Life builds on the harmonies of After You've Gone . Sonny Rollins played in his trio with Ray Brown and Shelly Manne in 1957 on the harmonies of the standard as Come, Gone , omitting the subject entirely.

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b H.-J. Schaal, Jazz-Standards, p. 18f.
  2. ↑ a b c song portrait (jazzstandards.com)
  3. ↑ a later version of him made it onto the charts (1932, # 15).
  4. ↑ According to Schaal, this is his first recording as a singer;
  5. ↑ Andrew Hamilton: Artist Biography by Andrew Hamilton. In: allmusic.com. AllMusic, accessed April 5, 2019 .

Web links

Commons : After You've Gone  - collection of images, videos and audio files